The Internet has brought about many real world changes throughout the years, which brings much to the case of the idea that everyone enjoys media freedom. Networked publics have enabled people to exercise their media freedom to enact change to varying levels of success, based largely on the tactics used. Shirky (2008, p. 304) states that, “our social tools are dramatically improving our ability to share, co-operate, and act together… it is leading to an epochal change.” Around 40 per cent of the world’s population has access to the Internet, the overwhelming majority of which are located in the developed world (ITU, 2014) – this does not include parts the developing world and therefore it is important to note that media freedom is far from universal. Nonetheless, the navigation of online to offline practices in effecting real world change can be examined through policy changes, activism, social groupings and interpersonal relationships, and more – however, the impact of the Internet is not wholly positive. The emerging networked public sphere has come with as many challenges as it has opportunities, and it is important to note all of these factors and both sides of the debate in going forward.

This year is a blank slate. For one kind of person, that idea would be filled with promise, but for me – honestly, it’s a bit anxiety inducing. There’s so much I want to achieve personally, so much I’m not sure I’ll be able to accomplish. It’s a challenge, but above all else I’m going to try as best as I can, and cling to positivity and hope.

As for my internet presence – I’d like to post more here, and develop my blog in a way that categorises it a bit better. I’ll stop posting my random articles, and post more book reviews and posts with meaning. I’m doing the goodreads challenge again this year, aiming to read 50 books in a year. That’s about 20 more than last year… so I’m definitely starting this year optimistically!

“Reading Hangsaman is like entering a dark labyrinth, only to discover that you have always been it, and that the novel has merely awakened you to this fact, something you have tried all your life to forget.”

“Natalie is lonely at school. And because of who she is, and because of what kind of novel this is, her loneliness is terrifying. The dangerous power of awareness, quotidian social brutality, loneliness, and existential fear propel Hangsaman toward the edge of becoming a psychological thriller” – Francine Prose

This book, more than any of Shirley’s other books, I had no preconceived notions of. I don’t know anyone who’s read it, I’ve never read anyone’s thoughts on it, I barely even knew it existed until I was going from bookstore to bookstore in Sydney looking for a shop that actually stocked her work. So it was already shrouded in mystery.

I spent a long time trying to figure out what this was actually about, as I was reading it. Natalie Waite, a seventeen year old girl, is starting college for the first time. She has two parents – a teary housewife for a mother and a pretentious writer for a father – and an apathetic brother, all of whom she doesn’t seem to really connect with at all. With nothing to tether her to a concept of “home”, she’s optimistic about starting a new life at the college, but finds it difficult to make friends and instead finds herself at artificial, tension-laden gatherings with one of her tutors, his young wife Elizabeth, and two of Elizabeth’s friends, one of whom the tutor might be having an affair with.

It seems pretty straightforward at this point, a coming-of-age story, but… that’s not what it is. At the beginning of the novel, it’s implied that Natalie was raped or assaulted by a man at one of her father’s garden parties, and that implication is pushed further and further back in Natalie’s mind, dissociating herself from reality. I get the feeling she desperately wants to be loved and accepted, and when she can’t make that happen she becomes increasingly unhinged and depressed, perhaps even inventing herself a friend in the mysterious girl named Tony who appears in the second part of the novel. The novel is incredibly (and purposefully) restrained, as though it’s balancing on the edge of a knife along with Natalie’s sanity.

My favourite section of the novel is actually the last few pages, set in an abandoned theme park, where the descriptions are so unsettling they feel like something out of one of those inexplicably creative nightmares you don’t really want to wake from. It’s atmospheric and vivd and… I think it’s the first time I’ve really had that “immersive Shirley Jackson experience” where I feel genuinely all at once afraid and expectant. I did feel lost in a labyrinth for a while there.

My favourite line is the last line: “As she had never been before, she was now alone, and grown up, and powerful, and not at all afraid.”

I feel like I’ll always struggle with writing reviews for Shirley Jackson novels; there’s just so much to take in and so much interpretation to be done, so forgive me if I’m not as coherent as someone who’s known the book for a while.

In fact, this New York Times review from when it was released in 1962 is really accurate right now: “I have always felt that some writers should be read and never reviewed. Their talent is haunting and oblique; their mastery of the craft seems complete… And now, Miss Jackson has made it even more difficult for a reviewer to seem pertinent; all he can do is bestow praise.”

This was kind of the perfect book to read on the cusp of October, over two nights with my window open, smelling the night-blooming Jasmine outside. I’ve always found Spring to be an optimistic, magical kind of time, and this season is infused throughout We Have Always Lived in the Castle, climbing up the corners like vines over the ruins of a house.

“There was no change coming, I thought here, only spring; I was wrong to be so frightened. The days would get warmer, and Uncle Julian would sit in the sun, and Constance would laugh when she worked in the garden, and it would always be the same.”

I first read The Haunting of Hill House earlier this year, and it quickly became one of my favourite novels. In fact I was so impressed, and so taken with the protagonist who I saw a lot of myself in, that I decided to read more of Jackson’s novels (and I am writing a lengthy essay on her works for a course). There are a lot of similarities between it and this novel – isolated female protagonists, the concept of a “haunted house”, and the “suburban gothic” genre to name a few things – but in comparison to Hill House, this novel was strangely uplifting. I wasn’t expecting it to be.

Merricat Blackwood is one of the most unique protagonists I’ve come across (as is Eleanor Vance of Hill House, and I expect this will be a theme throughout Jackson’s works). It’s rare that a character can think “I am going to put death in their food and watch them die” and you find yourself laughing and endeared (or is that just me?). I disagree with some of the other users who have described this novel as “terrifying”, or “disturbing” – I feel like those are better words to describe Hill House. The villagers descending on the house in the climactic scene is the real threat of the novel, but it always feels so external. Even when they villagers are inside the house, destroying everything – knowing that Constance and Merricat are protecting each other makes you feel like it doesn’t even matter. They take the ruins and board it all up and make a new home, and with Merricat’s peur aeternus narration you get a sense that they’ll manage, and all they need is each other.

I think a very different story and a sadder feeling would have been given from agoraphobic Constance’s perspective, who, at 28, is a lot older and has a firmer grasp on the knowledge of what they’ve lost (”What have I done to my baby Merricat? No house. No food. And dressed in a tablecloth; what have I done?”), and she makes attempts throughout the novel to restore normalcy when cousin Charles is over (considering wearing pearls, trying to curb Merricat’s wildness, believing she should step out into the world again for everyone’s benefit). Constance feels to me a lot like a less bitter, less self-centric Eleanor Vance, even down to being the carer of an older relative. But unlike Eleanor, Constance has her loving sister, and so instead of being consumed by the house at the end, they fold into it, becoming part of the village folklore like two witches from a fairytale.

P.S. I would give anything for a Guillermo Del Toro adaptation of this book.
P.P.S Somehow this answers a wish I’ve often repeated to myself – the wish that Chan-Wook Park’s Stokerhad originally been a novel. Many aspects remind me of it. Also vaguely remiscent of Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale.

There’s something about fairy tales that has captured the minds of generations for centuries, whether through traditional oral storytelling, in written form or their portrayal to the masses through animation and film. However, it can be hard for the fairy tale genre to break the mold set forth by Disney and its sanitised narratives.

For example, in the original tale of Cinderella, the stepsisters’ eyes were plucked out by pigeons as punishment for their wickedness. Even worse, Rapunzel woke from her slumber after being raped by the prince, and raised her twins alone. And, in a twist that the producers at Disney could never, ever commit to film, The Little Mermaid, who fell in love with the prince ends up dying – turned into sea foam when he chooses someone else.

The notion of the “dark” fairy tale is by no means new, but increasingly they have become a careful, trepidatious balance between light and dark, and between “traditional” and “feminist” in their empowerment of women, who are most often at the centre of the narratives. Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 Cinderella was criticised more for the slimness of principal star Lily James’ waistline than anything dark, while Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods has been criticised for being less than child-friendly – it is always amusing when unsuspecting parents bring their children to a performance, only to leave before the second act!

The modern-day fairy tale for adults seems like a far-fetched fantasy, when we expect them to be written for children.

Danielle Wood, winner of the 2002 Australian/Vogel Literary award, a senior lecturer at the University of Tasmania and author of several fairy tale oriented books, is in a unique position as she is a mother who writes fairy tales. In being exposed to elements of adult and child views of these narratives, she has been able to implement a multifaceted approach to her writing built on these experiences. Mothers Grimm, published in 2014 by Allen & Unwin, deals with motherhood, satirising the ideal of the “perfect” fairy tale mother – she claims that the “good mother” is as much a fairy tale as the big bad wolf. She theorises that different fairy tales become relevant at different periods. “At the moment, we’re particularly interested in those tales like ‘Rapunzel’ (Tangled), ‘Snow White’ (Snow White and the Huntsman) and even ‘Sleeping Beauty’ (Maleficent) that interrogate the relationships between women, and especially the relationships between different kinds of mothers and daughters.”

This inter-generational appeal being reflected in modern retellings is promising as it not only recognises the effect of a fairy tale beyond a child’s worldview, but acts as an improvement on the representation of women in these stories – transforming outdated moral codes into something fresh. This is particularly relevant considering how women are often pitted against one another in traditional stories – such as the Evil Queen wishing to kill Snow White, her adopted daughter; the Wicked Stepmother and stepsisters’ resentment of Cinderella; Maleficent punishing Aurora for her parent’s mistakes – rarely are female friendships and dynamics positive in these instances. Women are also concerningly pitted against one another in modern, real-life media, where gossip columns consistently attempt to create a vicious diatribe of competition. It is in the ability of fairy tales to transform to suit modern concerns that the genre finds its ongoing power. “What I love about fairy tales is their endless malleability. And, at different times in history, different fairy tales seem to come to the fore and present themselves as blueprints to help us work through our preoccupations and anxieties,” Wood said.

Fairy tales have always had a uniquely feminine aspect, yet most of the stories as they are commonly known were reconstructed from original tales by men – the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, and Walt Disney. In an older version of Little Red Riding Hood, the story ended with Little Red using her wits to deceive the wolf and escape independently. Another version had Little Red and her grandmother teaming up to smoke the wolf out the chimney. In the popular Perrault version, Little Red and her grandmother are saved by a huntsman who is conveniently walking through the woods and hears their cries.

Wood praises a recent turn towards finding the feminine in fairy tales, particularly in reinforcing positive dynamics. “Women have always been the tellers of fairy tales, but they have not always had the opportunity to be their publishers or most well-recognised proponents. In recent years there has been increasing focus – in fiction and scholarly work – on the women who were writing fairy tales at the same time as Perrault, and the women who told tales to the Grimms. So, perhaps the 20th and 21st century retellings of the tales, by women, are just fairy tales finding their way home?”

Reilly McCarron, the creator of Australia’s very own Fairy Tale Society, and owner of healing business Faerie Bard, aims to use her talents as an oral storyteller and musician to retain older, bawdier versions of fairy tales. Like Danielle Wood, McCarron believes that the concept of transformation is key to the resilience of fairy tales. Fairy tales are about reinvention, and transformation is a key element in many stories. It is something that humans understand on a deeper level, the idea that one can grow and transform throughout life, battle metaphorical wolves and dragons, and survive. “Fairy tales are perfectly shaped little stories which reveal the dynamics of the human condition through symbolic motifs and metaphor. They provide a safe stage on which dangerous emotional states can be played out, where dark inner world landscapes are illuminated, where deep insights and wise guidance is found,” McCarron said.

McCarron turns to an older form of storytelling to depict fairy tales – that of oral storytelling – and believes they can enable audiences to heal. “Fairy tales themselves undergo endless transformation as new tellers and artists recreate them in new ways.” This connection between the shifting, transforming narrative and human life holds a deep meaning for McCarron. “Fairy tales illuminate complex psychological states in simplistic ways. The story thread follows through on the journey of transformation until some form of justice or resolution has been reached. Because the tale is simple and entertaining it can be swallowed whole, allowing the seeds of insight to take root in the mind of the listener.”

One of her favourite fairy tales, Sleeping Beauty, was the inspiration for her 2012 show “Sleeping Kingdom, Waking Beauty,” which demonstrated the darkness that can be overcome and understood through the narrative of a rape survivor. The show was hailed by critics, including Paul Nolan of Performing Arts Hub, “The piece was a relevant comment on modern life choices and enlightenment on the road to adulthood during any era.”

“I [retold] this tale to reveal the sleeping/dissociating girl’s inner journey, from which she wakes with a deep understanding of herself,” McCarron said. She believes in the resonance of fairy tales because they are, at heart, full of humanity and real world difficulties. With such symbolically complex narratives, it is hard to believe fairy tales are often dismissed as “just” children’s stories, as if their meanings are not relevant to adult experience. Likewise, it is a genre that, given its propensity for balancing darkness and hope in real-life morality lessons, could perhaps seek to avoid condescending to children. “The fairy tales I told to adults were older versions of popular tales and included some of the sex, humour, and horror which had been edited out of popular versions like Disney. Many adults enjoyed hearing tales they thought they knew but didn’t quite; these versions had more to offer the mature mind,” said McCarron.

The performative nature of fairy tales is something McCarron would like to uphold, as a traditional feature of a genre that is always being transformed and modernised. “The Australian Fairy Tale Society has inspired Fairy Tale Rings to sprout up across the country where people gather together to perform, read, bring artworks, and discuss a tale together, and there are many other groups around Australia doing similar things. But it doesn’t have to be a storyteller performing to an audience, parents of young children keep this tradition alive at bedtime everywhere.”

Danielle Wood has faith that the tales will continue to be created and shared for a long time to come. Fairy tales are uniquely poised to be able to tell the same stories over again with different values and reflections, allowing them to be continually modernised and transformed. “People have responded to Mothers Grimm by saying ‘oh yes, fairy tale retellings are very in, aren’t they?’ But I’m not sure that they’ve ever really been out, and I can’t see why that would change.”

‘Transformation: Spinning straw into green and gold’ is the theme of the Australian Fairy Tale Society’s second conference to be held on Sunday 21st June (Winter Solstice) at the NSW Writers’ Centre.

Danielle Wood’s Mothers Grimm, published by Allen & Unwin, can be purchased through major Australian bookstores. She will also be at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on the 22nd of May for a panel on Myths, Fairy tales and the Need to Believe.

Evie Wyld, winner of the 2014 Miles Franklin award for her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, joined Geordie Williamson in conversation at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. I had interviewed Wyld a few days earlier, and was charmed by her Britishness – her colourful description of “a proper row” she witnessed in a dining hall over a book, amongst other Britishisms – and intriguing insights into the navigation of place between Australia and England in her writing.

It is clear that Wyld has a deep connection with Australia. Though born in the UK, much of her childhood was spent on a sugar cane farm in New South Wales with her mother’s family, where she harbours many fond memories. Her fascination with the supernatural stemmed in part from the stories her Australian grandfather told.

“The Australian landscape, for me, has always been full of ghosts,” she said. “As a child I’d walk around the sugar cane farm really happily and enjoy myself making up stories. There was this one little bit of marshland where my grandfather said there was a yowie, and that it was a woman who’d had her legs cut off – as you do to six year olds! – and that when you heard the cane rustling that was her dragging herself along the ground. But it never stopped me going through there.”

Wyld described herself as being a sickly, quiet child in awe of her Australian relatives. “They’re the kind of Australians who wear underwear with no shoes, driving their tractors around. My uncle has a rule that you wear shoes to a funeral but not a wedding. They were these huge colourful characters.” This, she contrasts with ideas of British masculinity, which she describes as “proper, thin and pale.” With such duality in her upbringing, it is unsurprising that Wyld has been inspired to write in such a vivid manner.

“Collecting memories meant I was closer to the place,” she said, describing how she would proudly assert her Australian heritage at school.

Event moderator Geordie Williamson referenced essays by Robert MacFarlane in his summation of Wyld’s work. MacFarlane’s essays deal with the relationship between writers and landscape. Wyld, too, has described feeling as though landscapes are “just another character” in her books. This sentiment was also echoed in the Sydney Writers’ Festival talk Climate Change and the New Nature (where MacFarlane’s essays were also referenced) which gives way to a feeling that writers are becoming more interested in writing about landscapes and their relationships to people.

Wyld’s entertaining and informative discussion proves that she will be a major force in Australian literature for years to come.

“Nature is a victim of domestic violence – we all live in the same house and we’ve beaten the shit out of it.” Anson Cameron’s strong words resonated across the room at the Sydney Writers’ Festival to a momentary stunned silence, before the audience burst into applause.

Cameron, author of five critically acclaimed novels and columnist for The Age newspaper, joined fellow panellist John Bradley, winner of a number of Australian and International awards for his four novels, to talk about an emerging genre called “cli-fi” – that is, climate fiction. Both have recently authored dystopian novels that fall under the genre.

“The lines between natural and unnatural are blurred,” Bradley said, citing scientific breakthroughs of recent years such as bionics and artificial intelligence. “Nature is damaged and altered, and there’s an urgency there considering the rapidity of these changes. There is a science fictional nature to the world we now live in.”

The ensuing discussion proved how the effects of a prolonged lack of concern regarding climate change have led to changes in literature about nature. According to Cameron, past literature has depicted either harsh, violent, frightening nature such as in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Wuthering Heights, or, on the other hand, romanticised nature as if made by God. It is evident that this approach has given way to stories of bleak, ravaged wastelands and love letters to something that has been lost.

“How much of New Nature is about loss? It seems to me a tribute – ‘these are the things we’ve lost’,” climate change expert at the University of Sydney, Professor David Schlosberg, queried. Bradley reminded the audience that in 1998, one quarter of the world’s coral died and there was very little concern. “It’s brain breaking,” he said. “It reminds me of the saying ‘one death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is a statistic’.” Bradley strives to make this loss more tangible. “Loss is deeply wound up in this genre.”

However, both authors agree that to an extent, it’s important to retain a sense of hope going forward. “Hope – like beer, wine and song – is essential,” Cameron said. “Opting out of hope is a failure.” While Bradley doesn’t see the ending of his novel as particularly hopeful, he believes it shows possibility. “The future is still open,” he explained. “It’s difficult to write a bleak ending because a novel is a human form.”

Overall, the talk was an illuminating discussion about how climate change has not only affected our physical world, but also our literature.

Kim Williams’ new book, Rules of Engagement, focuses on what is important to him – “enthusiasms, passions, ideas, and the energy of thinking” – rather than any recent controversy.

Williams has had an illustrious career as a media executive, heading high profile media organisations such as News Corp, Foxtel and the Australian Film Commission, as well as music-oriented organisations including Musica Viva Australia and the Sydney Opera House trust. He also studied the clarinet at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. “I had a very long and lovely relationship with the clarinet,” he said, smiling.

It is no surprise, then, that in his Sydney Writers’ Festival address he revealed that music is the central force in his life.

“Music is with you always,” Williams said. “I have music playing in the back of my mind all the time.” He was quick to clarify. “I never, ever listen to music playing while I work. I don’t understand playing music when you’re not really listening to it.”

He also believes that music helps with conflict resolutions. “Bach uses a series of discords that resolve themselves. Understanding the discipline of music is understanding the notion of tension and release.”

Williams’ passion for music underpins his disbelief that the Coalition federal government has no arts policy, and that creating one is not a priority. He believes that music is one of the things you acquire to lead a productive life. He said that, in particular, the lack of compulsory music education for children is concerning. “Children are among the most abused in society because they don’t have a say. Music should be compulsory for children; it’s fundamental.”

The reason for this, he insisted, is the growing inability to listen in order to make change.

Williams stressed the importance of listening in a world that is often too cacophonous. “There is a severe onslaught against listening,” said Williams. He traced this in part to the effect of the rise of social media and narcissism. According to Williams, listening is the key to rescue our future.

Drawing on history for a particular example, Williams praised Captain Cook’s leadership qualities. “[He showed these abilities in] endeavouring to engage and the way he documented. He is a role model for leadership, and made sure everybody came along. A splendid human being.”

Evie Wyld won the 2014 Miles Franklin award for her second novel Evie Wyld was the winner of the 2014 Miles Franklin award for her second novel, All the Birds, Singing. Wyld was born in London and moved to Australia, where she grew up in New South Wales. Her novel focuses on notions of place, navigating between the harsh Australian landscape and the UK with gothic flavour.

All the Birds, Singing seems strongly influenced by themes of ‘place’, or lack thereof. Given the fact that you have dual citizenship in the UK, how tied to a sense of place do you think a writer is?

I guess it depends on the writer, but for me personally, my writing all starts with a sense of place. It’s more about imagining the place before the character, and the character is kind of a construct of their environment. Jake, in particular, is a bit wild, she’s a bit grotty, she suits the muck and the cold but she also suits the sweat and the heat of Australia. For me, the landscape and the place is just another character. It’s totally essential in what I’m interested in – how a person on their own behaves in a landscape. So they become the same thing to me, I enjoy Australia as a country because in the remote landscapes you don’t have human eyes watching you and I think people behave differently when they feel totally alone, they move differently. That was a real consideration with my first book – that I wanted people to interact with the landscape and not with people so much.

As well as experimenting with notions of place, you also use time in an interesting way, as the scenes in Australia unfold from present to past. How did you come up with this idea?

I’d had a vague idea of how I wanted to write the story and what happened generally, and then structure for me is the really playful part. You can have a lot of fun and sort of work out the best way of telling the story, which is not always linear. This story in particular works with a sense of suspense and holding things back – it’s all about memory, really – it’s about holding things back and leaving things out.

It came to me quite late; I’d tried a few other things. The parts set in the UK in the present are written in past tense and the bits in the past are in the present tense. I suppose it was in playing with what makes the most sense in the story. I wasn’t trying to be tricky; I don’t think I’d do it with another story – partly because it became very complicated towards the end. If you’re going to use a funny structure you have to stick to your rules, which meant taking out a lot of writing that I’d done because it didn’t fit within the confines of the structure. Every time I write something there’s a point where I think what shape this has to be to fully exist.How did people respond to experimenting with past and present?

Some people find it really exciting, some people find it incredibly frustrating and confusing. I didn’t do it to be tricky but at the same time I enjoy disorientating myself, as much as readers. Writing a novel you get lost in it and making a storyline is how you find your way back. I wanted that sense that, I trust readers that they come to a book and they want to trust that I’m telling them a story and if they enjoy getting there, then it’s not a problem. I don’t think you necessarily need to be completely aware of what’s going on at all times. Like in life, some things are open ended. Your own imagination works more if you’re a little bit confused, you bring a lot to the novel as a reader.

The protagonist in the novel’s name, “Jake” is very unique and androgynous, and the male character “Clare” – how important do you think the process of naming a character in a novel is?

You can’t just dole out any old name – I think there’s a tendency to want to make your character seem very serious by giving them a name with gravitas, something like “Raven” [laughs] I think Jack is a very common name for a strong, lead action character. So it is really important, and important enough that you have to be aware of all of the connotations of a name. You wouldn’t be able to have an Adolf or an Obama without thinking about what that means. Clare is a man really struggling with his masculinity and how he sees himself to be perceived by others. I knew I wanted Jake to have a one syllable name, something you can shout, something gruff, something that implies she hasn’t had an easy life. She’s a big person, she’s quite gruff, she’s got this grunty name – she’s not an Isabella with pigtails, not one of the popular kids. That can really inform stuff. Quite often when I’m writing short stories, I don’t give characters a name at all. I think the names are so – readers have connotations of names. If your mother-in-law is called Barbara, that’s who you picture, and you have to work hard to break that interpretation. I spend a lot of time thinking about names. Lloyd started off as Roderick, and my husband hated it so much – after 2 years he finally wore me down and I changed it. Roderick reminded him of Roderick from Life of Brian.

There is a mix of light and dark in the novel, there’s bleakness but there’s humour and moments of kindness and empathy. Is it important to keep a balance? (There seems to be a current conception in modern media that bleak stories are more ‘deep’ and meaningful)

My mum is quite emotional and doesn’t enjoy sad stories and won’t watch murders on telly – I told her it was quite odd she enjoys my books, but she said “but they’re so funny!” She reads them as comedies! For me, it’s like you can’t have one without the other and comedies tend to be incredibly dark, comedians are some of the most depressed people I know. I also think when things are dark the whole way through it just gets really boring. You don’t get that contrast. People have said my books are depressing, but I don’t think they are. Far worse stuff happens in the real world, to people. People talk about the relentlessness of the stuff that happens to Jake and I thought well, people have much harder lives than that – and find the time to laugh about it.There’s a lot of ambiguity in the novel, which relies on the reader’s imagination. How do you think this informs the reader’s impression of the story?

Everyone who reads Wuthering Heights has a different image of Cathy and of the moors, the weather – that’s what’s amazing and that’s why people get pent up about books. I was in a restaurant last night and people were having a proper row about a book, and it’s because they both have different ideas of what it is, and they’re both totally right and that’s what’s great about it. I probably go to a greater degree than some people in leaving things up to the reader – I like to leave quite open endings. I feel like life is an open ending, and you finish a book and all the ends are tied up neatly and you kind of go “alright, that’s sorted out…” and you close the book. On the other hand, if you problematise that, it’s something you might think about for a while. You might send the author an angry email!

Has that happened to you?

Oh yeah. This book, more than anything else I’ve written. People are like “look, I invested the time reading this, I demand to know what the thing at the end is.” I think that’s so funny, that they think that I would know more than is in that book.

You have also written several short stories. How different is the experience of writing a short story to a novel?

It’s totally different. Short story writing is so precise. I started off writing short stories and now writing my third novel – it’s made me look back at my short stories and really think “wow, they’re not good enough.” They were fantastic in getting me where I am as an author but when I look at people who are fantastic at short stories – such as John McGregor – I’m worried I’ve written myself out of writing novels. I still try, but the process of writing is so different. You cant have a novel worked out in your head, you have to navigate yourself or you’ll get lost. With a short story, you have it in front of you and you have to do the best you can with that information, there’s nowhere to hide.

Who are your favourite Australian authors?

I started reading Tim Winton when I was about 13. Richard Flanagan, Kate Grenville, a lot of Miles Franklin winners. Fiona McFarlane – I love her books. I run a bookshop back home with an Australian and we both have a beady eye out for Australian authors.

Professor Roland Fletcher discussed climate change and how we can learn from the past.

Something that is really frustrating for archaeologists such as Roland Fletcher is the total disregard people have for the origins of their food. “You really couldn’t give a damn!” he joked in his Curiosity Lecture Series talk at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. “You might think archaeologists are a bit mad, because they spend their time grovelling through other people’s garbage. But if you look through someone’s garbage bin, you can see what people really do, not just what they say they do.”

Fletcher is a professor of archaeology at the University of Sydney and instigator of the Greater Angkor project, which uses laser imaging to map the “lost” ancient megacity Angkor in Cambodia. “It’s strange that they call it a ‘lost city’ – as if the locals were so incompetent that they’d lost it,” Professor Fletcher said. “The local people showed explorers how to get there.”

He believes that by comparing the destruction of the ancient city to what is occurring in present day societies, we can be better prepared for the effects of climate change. “We have to have memory for a reference point for what we do, and a reference point for our relationship with others,” he said.

The temple of Angkor Wat – which is the size of the University of Sydney – was once a testament to the creativity, imagination and skill of its people, until it suffered the effects of severe erosion as a result of the transition from the Warm Medieval Period in the 14th century to the Little Ice Age in the 16th century.

“Angkor went through mega monsoons interspersed by severe drought, which led to the destabilisation of the city,” Professor Fletcher explained. “[They] had re-engineered their landscape and destroyed forests to create the city. There was a period of severe erosion and redeposition of thousands of tonnes of sand into their water systems.”

According to Professor Fletcher, this occurrence is significant. “Angkor was a giant, low density city, cleared of natural vegetation and hit by an extreme period of climate. The city became impossible to repair.” Sound familiar? Professor Fletcher finds it “disturbing” that 50 per cent of humanity currently lives in urban environments, a far larger statistic than in previous historical periods. Considering the worsening effects of climate change, he believes we are beginning a transition into a new climate period. “It might be worth paying attention to the material memory that lies in our past,” Professor Fletcher said. “Most of Angkor’s population reformed the community around its perimeter, and the same thing happened in Sri Lanka.”

Professor Fletcher suggests part of the solution lies in decentralisation. “It’s important to diversify your base. Committing to mega infrastructure means that if a disaster occurs it can be almost impossible to repair. There should be variety, and many means of power and transport.” He rounded out the discussion by expressing his desire for new urban studies programs that go beyond current short-term orientations, and instead incorporate more of a focus on the past to build a better future.